HMV broadens range with fashion brands offer

Entertainment group HMV is expanding its fledgling fashion offer with the introduction of a raft of big-name brands next week.

Although the brands have some music associations, their mainstream status represents an extension of the retailer’s clothing offer, which has until now had a clear connection to its core categories.

HMV will sell Boxfresh, Lee Jeans, Fly53 and Eastpak in 38 of its big stores, including London’s Oxford Street, Manchester and Birmingham, from Wednesday.

The initiative is part of the 285-store chain’s ambitions to transform itself into a “broad-based entertainment brand”. HMV expects fashion and other new merchandise categories to account for 6% of sales by 2013 compared with 3% now.

The ranges will predominantly feature men’s clothing, such as T-shirts, jackets and jeans, and accessories, which it hopes will appeal to young people in particular.

HMV fashion manager and former Fat Face head of menswear Richard Stockwell said: “Music and fashion can be a perfect fit for HMV, not least because they overlap so strongly.”

The company push into fashion represents a natural progression, which for some years has stocked licensed merchandise, such as band T-shirts, supplied by manufacturers Bravado and Amplified.

Fashion ranges will be displayed in an in-store department branded The Studio, first launched with a small-scale offer in Leeds in May.

Smaller HMV stores will stock a limited clothing selection, while new lines will also be sold online and potentially at HMV-owned music venues and festival locations.

Primark parent company ABF’s financial director John Bason told Retail Week this week that going online was still “not a priority” and Primark would be as relevant as ever to shoppers through its reopened bricks-and-mortar stores .